Comcast's arguments that assertions of racial discrimination aren't genuine aren't proper arguments to support a civil procedure motion for dismissal, said Entertainment Studios Networks and the National Association of African American Owned Media in a reply brief (in Pacer) Friday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They said Comcast arguments against an ESN/NAAAOM conspiracy claim are a red herring since they dropped that claim and are focusing on Comcast's discriminatory treatment of ESN and its owner, Byron Allen, in programming decisions. It said the few African-American-owned channels Comcast carries are exceptions and therefore evidence of its racial bias. Comcast didn't comment Monday. ESN/NAAAOM are appealing a lower court's 2016 dismissal of a racial discrimination claim against Comcast (see 1704170017) and are pursuing a similar claim against Charter Communications (see 1610260069).

Cox Communications' "sham" Digital Millennium Copyright Act defense and its attempt to obfuscate through discovery abuses drove up the cost of litigation, so it can't complain about having to bear those costs, said BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music in a supplemental principal and response brief (in Pacer) filed Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Cox, fighting BMG's motion for $10.48 million in attorney's fees and $2.92 million in expenses (see 1610030005), never addresses those behaviors that caused the lower court to award fees, they said. They said Cox argued the torrent piracy lawsuit raised novel issues, but the 4th Circuit and the Supreme Court in its 2016 Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons decision rejected "novelty" as protection from avoiding fees. Counsel for Cox didn't comment Monday.

TiVo expanded its intellectual property license agreement with TCL, it said in a Thursday announcement. The deal extends to “into the next decade” and covers TCL’s Roku TVs. Separately, TCL North America obtained capability to incorporate TiVo “entertainment discovery technology” into TVs for the U.S., Canada and Mexico markets, it said. TiVo didn’t respond to questions.

Either a Discovery/Scripps Networks or Viacom/Scripps Networks combination (see 1707190015) would lead to improved advertising and affiliate fee revenue, though those improvements will take time, with the more immediate benefit likely being non-programming cost savings, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker to investors Tuesday. She said E.W. Scripps management has been clear the Scripps family isn't interested in selling its broadcast interests.

NCTA asked the FCC to clarify Wi-Fi discussion in a draft Further NPRM on Form 477 broadband data collection on commissioners' Aug. 3 meeting tentative agenda. "Offering of Wi-Fi service in a package with resold mobile service does not change the technical capability of the Wi-Fi connection," said a filing Wednesday in docket 11-10 on a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. "In seeking comment on whether there are circumstances in which Wi-Fi deployment should be reported as a mobile service, we encouraged the Commission to make clear that it is only asking about Wi-Fi that has the technical capability to enable mobile use (e.g., through seamless handoffs from one access point to another)." The cable group said it's "premature" to conclude the agency should gather more granular data, and suggested the commission seek comment on the use of Form 477 data to ensure it's worthwhile.

ZoneTV will launch a customizable lineup of linear TV channels this fall, it said in a news release Tuesday. It said the channels will feature ZoneTV-licensed digital content that will be curated into specialized channels for pay-TV subscribers. But it said its service -- using video monetization services company Ooyala and Microsoft's Video Indexer -- will combine linear, on-demand and customized choices into ZoneTV's Dynamic Channels offering.

TiVo launched content discovery features Tuesday for MVPDs, highlighting “conversational voice search” and personalized search and recommendations. Analytics capabilities in the Personalized Content Discovery platform allow MVPDs to do A/B testing and optimize operations in real time, said TiVo. Conversational search can cover linear TV, VOD and over-the-top programming.

The growth of on-demand viewing platforms and Nielsen's NPX methodology change likely means collapsing TV ratings, with a potential 12 percent drop in Q2 among viewers ages 18-49 watching live and within three days of broadcast, MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson wrote investors Monday. That will pressure national TV advertising worse than previously forecast, he said, predicting Q2 net subscriber losses among traditional MVPDs of 2.8 percent -- though factoring in virtual MVPD subscriber growth could mitigate it some. The analysts said reports of Discovery Communications and Viacom being interested in Scripps Networks (see 1707190015) make sense because neither has big presence on virtual MVPD lineups but could leverage Scripps' Food and HGTV networks to change that.

Google's YouTube TV virtual MVPD service expanded to an additional 10 metro areas, it tweeted Thursday, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. YouTube TV launched in April in the Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco markets (see 1704050049).

Joining CableLabs are NBN, Stofa, Nowo Communications and Guangdong Cable, respectively in Australia, Denmark, Portugal and China, said DOJ in Thursday's Federal Register. CableLabs told us it now has 60 members in 35 countries.